Going away party for Chris Hadfield and Mike Foale was very touching, good stories were told, 9 spaceflights between the two of them.

No other details available as of yet...

Hart Sastrowardoyo

Too bad! Would have been neat to see a seventh flight for Foale. But maybe he'll yet do so - that would be some career - Shuttle, Soyuz, Mir, ISS and a commercial vehicle....

Richard Witt

This now makes Cady Coleman the most senior active astronaut, and the only pre-Sardine left on active status.

Robert Pearlman

NASA release

Michael Foale Leaves NASA After 26-Year Career

NASA astronaut Michael Foale has retired, ending a 26-year space agency career that included 375 days in space during six space shuttle missions and extended stays aboard two space stations.

Foale spent 145 days aboard the Russian space station Mir in 1997 and 194 days aboard the International Space Station as commander of Expedition 8 from October 2003 to April 2004. He also conducted four spacewalks over his NASA career totaling almost 23 hours.

"We salute Mike and his contributions to NASA as an accomplished member of the astronaut corps," said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. "Starting with his first flight, shuttle mission STS-45, when we flew together in 1992, Mike has worked tirelessly to support NASA's quest to explore the unknown. I know Mike will go on to do more great things as he continues to support the aerospace industry in his new endeavor."

Foale held many positions during his NASA career, including chief of the Astronaut Office Expedition Corps, assistant director (technical) of the space agency's Johnson Space Center in Houston, and deputy associate administrator for exploration operations at NASA Headquarters in Washington. He most recently worked in support of Soyuz and International Space Station operations, as well as space station spacewalk activity and spacesuit development.

In 2013, Foale retired from NASA to develop an electric aircraft, with a goal to reduce the cost of flying by 90 percent, as part of his passion for Green Aviation. He is currently an advisor for the Inspiration Mars Foundation.

Glint

This just in from the 13 August electronic edition of Aviation Week Intelligence Network's Aerospace Daily & Defense Report:

Long-Serving NASA Astronaut Mike Foale Retires

HOUSTON — Michael Foale, long NASA's most senior active astronaut, has retired from the space agency after three decades and a half-dozen spaceflights.

One of them — a 145-day flight to Russia's former Mir space station in 1997 — was interrupted by a harrowing collision with an out-of-control Progress cargo capsule.

During his 2003-04 command of the eighth expedition to the International Space Station, Foale became the first American to accumulate a year in space on his way to logging a pre-retirement total of 375 days.

The 56-year-old, British-born astrophysicist now plans to work on the development of an electric aircraft. Foale also serves as advisor to the Inspiration Mars Foundation, a nonprofit established by Los Angeles investor Dennis Tito earlier this year to send two explorers on a 500-day mission to Mars in early 2018. The flight would loop around the red planet with its crew and return to Earth.

Foale's retirement, announced Aug. 9, leaves NASA's active astronaut corps at 47, with eight new candidates selected in June to begin training this month.

He was drawn to the U.S. space program from his native England after earning a doctorate in astrophysics from the University of Cambridge in 1982. Employed initially by McDonnell Douglas to work on shuttle navigation, Foale joined NASA in 1983 as a payload officer in the Mission Control Center. He was accepted by NASA for astronaut training in 1987.

In 1997, Foal became the fifth of seven NASA astronauts assigned to staff Mir, as the U.S. and post-Cold War Russia explored long-running cooperation in human space exploration.

On June 25, a test of Russia's TORU manual docking system for the automated Progress supply ship went awry, and the freighter slammed into the station, breaching the Spektr science module that housed NASA experiments and served as Foale's sleeping quarters.

"It changed the whole condition of the station and the environment in which we worked," Foale noted in the aftermath. The three-man crew remained aboard, however. Foale later joined one of his Russian hosts on a spacewalk to survey the damage.

Prior to his retirement, Foale served as chief of the Soyuz branch of NASA's astronaut office, supporting Soyuz and ISS operations as well as new spacesuit development.